of the problem. The followers of the ducal family were some of them full of hope. The reappearance of a duke and duchess, and their train, might do wonders in restoring the old order of things. In Keeton petticoat influence counted for a great deal, and in other days those who had the promises of the wives hardly thought it worth while to go through the form of asking the husbands. But now there was a new condition of the political problem even in that respect. The ballot, which had made the voter independent of the influence of his landlord or his wealthy customer, had converted the power of the petticoat into a sort of unknown quantity. There could be little doubt that the moral influence and the traditional control would still prevail with some; but he must be a rash electioneering agent who would venture to say how many votes could thus be counted on. It is a remarkable tribute to the moral greatness of an aristocracy, that the influence thus obtained in old days over the wives and daughters of Keeton was absolutely unearned by any overt acts of favour or conciliation. The later dukes and their families had always been remarkable for never making any advances towards the townspeople. None of the traders of the town, however wealthy and respectable, found themselves or their wives invited to any manner of festivity up at the ducal hall. All that the noble family ever did for the townspeople was to come at certain seasons to Keeton and allow themselves to be looked at. This was enough for the time. The illustrious ladies could be seen, and, as has been said, they did sometimes speak a word to favoured and envied persons. They were loved for being great personages, not for anything they did to win such devotion. "Love is enough," says the poet.

All these considerations, however, rendered it hard to calculate the exact chances of opposition in the borough of Keeton. Of course revolutionary opinions were growing up, old people found, there as well as elsewhere. There was a new class of Conservatives springing up whom steady, old-fashioned politicians found it not easy to distinguish from the Radicals of their younger days. On the other hand, keensighted persons could not fail to perceive that, whereas in their youth almost all young men had a tendency to be or to fancy themselves Radicals, it was now growing rather the fashion for immature politicians to boast themselves Tories, and to talk of a spirited foreign policy and the dangers of Cosmopolitanism. It would be hard to say how things might turn out, knowing people thought, as they shook their heads, and hoped the expected contest might not come on for some time.

Now the contest was at hand. At least, the sitting member had

positively declared that he would sit no longer, and it was announced that the duke was coming to Keeton, and that Mr. Augustus Sheppard was to be the duke's candidate. No more striking proof could be given of the recent change in the political condition of Keeton, than is found in the fact that the adoption of Mr. Sheppard as a candidate by the ducal family did not even to the most devoted and sanguine followers of the great house make Mr. Sheppard's election seem by any means a matter of absolute certainty. There was a tolerably strong conviction everywhere, long before any opposition was announced, that the duke's candidate would not be allowed to walk over the course and right into the House of Commons this time. Nobody in the town would oppose the duke, very likely, but the man to oppose would come.

Now the man actually had come. Victor Heron had issued his address and was in Keeton. His address was original; he had positively refused from the first to make any grand professions of superior statesmanship or patriotism. He would tell Englishmen, he said, that he was seeking a seat in Parliament as a way of getting redress for a great wrong done to him, and through him to some of the principles most dear to the country. When he had fought his battle in Parliament, and won or lost, he promised that he would then place himself in the hands of his constituents and resign the seat if they desired. The whole address was frank, odd, original, and perhaps seemed a little self-conceited. The author's absorption in his subject was mistaken by many people, as will happen sometimes, for self-conceit.

Mr. Sheppard's address, on the contrary, talked only of the good old Conservative principles which had made England the envy and admiration of all surrounding States; of the local interests of Keeton and the candidate's acquaintance therewith; and of the many splendid things done for the town by the noble family who had done. it the honour to have a park there.

"I don't think Heron's address reads half badly," Mr. Money said, one evening in the absence of Heron, to his two companions; "on the whole, I shouldn't wonder if it took some people, the women particularly. Anything personal, anything in the nature of a grievance, is likely to have a good effect on many people, especially where the injured personage is young, and good-looking, and plucky. I wish the women had the votes here just for this once, for I think we should stand to win if they had."

Then,

papa, do you think we shan't win now?" Lucy asked. Minola looked up eagerly for his answer.

"Well, Lucelet, I don't like to say; I am not quite charmed with the look of things. I find there are a good many very strong Radicals grown up in this place since there was a contest here before; and Heron's not wild enough for them by half. They are a little of the red-hot-social-revolution sort of thing-the prolétaire business, with a dash of the brabbling atheist-the fellows who think one is not fit to live if he even admits the possibility of another world. I am afraid these fellows will hold aloof from us altogether, or even take some whim of voting against us, and they may be strong enough to turn the scale."

Minola hoped that if her friend Mr. St. Paul had really any charm by which to extort victory for Heron as he had promised he would not forget to use it in good time. But she began to have less faith, and less, in the possibility of any such feat. She was a little in the perplexed condition of some one of mediæval times, who has entered into a bargain for supernatural interference, and is not quite certain whether to wish that the compact may be really carried out or that it may prove to have been only the figment of a dream.

"I'm told we ought to have some poems done," Money went on to say. "Not merely squibs, you know, but appeals about right and justice, and the cause of oppressed humanity, and all that."

"I'm sure Minola could do some beautifully!" Lucy exclaimed, looking beseechingly towards her friend.

"Oh, no; I couldn't indeed! My appeals would be dreadfully weak; they could not rouse the spirits of any mortal creature. Now, if we only had Mary Blanchet!"

This, it must be owned, was Minola's fun, but it gave an idea to Mr. Money.

"Tell you what," he said, "we ought to have her brother-the bard, you used to call him, Lucelet."

"Oh, no, papa; indeed I never called him anything of the kind. I never did, indeed, Nola."

"Well, whatever you called him, Lucelet, we can't do better than to have him. We'll put Pegasus into harness, by Jove-a capital good use to make of him too! I'll write to what's-his-name?— Blanchet-at once."

"But I don't think he would like it, papa; I think he would take offence at the idea of your asking him to do poems for an election. I don't think he would come."

"Oh, yes, he would come! we would make it worth his while. These young fellows give themselves airs, to make you girls admire them, that they never think of trying on with men. It would be a

rather telling thing here, too, if it got about that we had brought a real poet specially down from London. I'll write at once."

This seemed rather alarming to Minola.

"I doubt whether Mr. Heron would much like it," she pleaded. "I don't know whether they are such very good friends just now-I am rather afraid."

"Oh, yes; of course they must be good friends! Heron is not to have it all his own way in everything, anyhow. He must like the idea; he shall. I'll write without telling him anything about it, and Heron couldn't help being friendly to any fellow who came under his roof, as one might say."

No one made any further objection.

"I wish Heron had not been so confoundedly particular about St. Paul," Mr. Money went on to say in a discontented tone. "That was absurd. St. Paul's no worse than lots of other fellows, and in such a thing as this we can't afford to throw away any offer of support. We have to fight against the duke and his lot anyhow, and the help of St. Paul couldn't have done us any harm in that quarter, and it might have done us some good in others. I shouldn't wonder if St. Paul had some friends and admirers here still; and it is as likely as not that his being with us might conciliate a few of the mad Radicals. They might like him just because he is against his brother, the duke."

"But Mr. Heron would not have such help as that," Lucy said, in tones of pride.

"Oh, by Jove! if you want to carry an election——and now, I suppose, if St. Paul has any influence at all it will be given against

us."

Minola thought of her unholy compact, and did not venture to say a word on the subject.

CHAPTER XXI,

AN EPISODE.

THAT was an odd and, on the whole, a wondrous pleasant time. In all her mental trouble and perplexity Minola could not help enjoying it. It was like a great holiday-like some extravagant kind of masquerading or private theatricals. It was impossible that one's spirits could go down, or at least that they could remain long down, under such circumstances. Life was a perpetual rattle and

excitement; and the company was full of mirth.

Even Victor Heron himself, for all his earnestness, went on as if the whole affair were some enormous joke. Electioneering appeared to be the best sort of pastime devisable. They all sat up until the morning concocting appeals to the electors, addresses to this or that interest supposed to be affected, attacks on the opposite party-not however on Mr. Sheppard personally-squibs about the Tories, denunciations of the Ministry, exhortations to the women of Keeton, the mothers of Keeton, the daughters of Keeton, and every class in and about Keeton who could be regarded as in the least degree open to the impulses of national or patriotic feeling. Some of these appeals had to be prepared in the absence and without the knowledge of the candidate whom they were intended to serve. Heron was so sensitive about what he considered fair play, that he was inclined as far as he could to restrain rather unduly even the good spirits of his chief supporters, and not to allow them to deal half as freely as they could have wished in the weapons of sarcasm and ridicule. Minola was developing quite a remarkable capacity for political satire, and Lucy Money was indefatigable at copying documents. There were meetings held day and night, and Victor sometimes made a dozen speeches in the course of a single afternoon.

Scarcely less eloquent did Mr. Money prove himself to be. He never failed when called upon to stand up anywhere and recount the misdeeds of the Ministry, and the crimes generally of the aristocracy of Britain, in language which went to the very hearts of his hearers; and he had a rough telling humour which kept his audience amused in the midst of all the horrors that his description of the country's possible ruin might have brought up before their minds. Mr. Money took the middle-aged electors immensely; but there could be little doubt that the suffrages of the women, if they had had any, would have been given freely in favour of the eloquence and the candidature of Victor Heron.

Sometimes it was delightful when a night came, after all the meetings and speech-makings were over-and it happened by strange chance that there was nothing more to do in the way of electioneering just then; for then the little party of friends would shut themselves up in their drawing-room, and chat and laugh, and sing and play on the piano, and make jokes, and discuss all manner of odd and fantastic questions, until long after prudence ought to have commended sleep. Minola sang whenever anybody asked her, although she never sang for listeners in London; and she sang, if she could, whatever her audience wished to hear. Lucy played and sang very